cumming of age

Hello everyone, and thanks for visiting once again! This new semester has been very busy for me, so I have to tell you a few highlights. I had 6 new students starting this month, and should be doubling that number in February. I've been really enjoying working with all the new students, and have had wonderful experiences with each of them. This week brought lots of great news, as my two students (Kristen and Jenna) competing in the regional solo competitions each brought back Gold medal wins! I am very proud of them for all their hard work, and how they embraced the opportunity to be musicians, not just horn players. We also talked a lot before the competition about being fearless and how they could really trust all their hard work, and I am thrilled to see how quickly it is paying off for them! Finally, last night I played my Doctoral Chamber recital with the talented Nina Zhou on piano and Brendan Shea and Bijan Sepanji on violin. We had a blast preparing for the recital and working together, and last night was a wonderful product of all our hard work. It was thrilling to play for a packed hall, and for so many friends and family to tune in live or later this weekend on ustream! We were quite happy with the results, and after such positive feedback, we are looking into performing the recital again, hopefully in both Canada and the U.S. With such a great start to 2012, I can't wait to see what the coming months will bring!